New Zealand's new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has made clear that the current tuition fee arrangements for Australian students in New Zealand will end if the policy does not remain reciprocal.

In a debate during the general electioncampaign, Ardern stated "If Australia lock us out of tertiary education, we will lock them out of it here."

This "locking out" does not refer to a formal barrier - such as a law stopping enrolments - but would be introduced by creating negative financial consequences for students. In other words, Australians interested in studying on the other side of the ditch could potentially face four-fold increases in tuition fees charged by New Zealand education providers.

New Zealand's Prime Ministerrecently restated that position in an interview, saying that movement on fees by the Australian government would have flow-on effects in New Zealand.

This means that from January 2018 onwards, all new tier-two students would be required to pay full domestic fees. At the moment the average public share of course costs in Australia is around 58 percent, so removing this gives an indication of the potential costs of this policy.

For instance, in a four-year degree programme, NZ students would face average annual fee increases of A$8000-9000 compared to the approximately A$2000-3600 annual increases proposed for domestic students. The increase would be higher in courses attracting greater subsidies, such as medicine, where students would be denied more than A$130,000 in government funding during the six-year programme.

As a way of compensating for the massive fee increases, the new scheme offers to extend the Higher Education Loan Program to New Zealanders and other tier-two students, which would provide access to funding to cover the tuition fee costs. This would improve the existing situation, where most NZ students are not able to access the loan scheme in Australia and have to pay upfront fees.